39 | DET/CHE 2024

This session will investigate the opportunities and challenges related to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) within higher education, as well as a proposed solution to address the growing digital divide through the Equitable AI Alliance. The team will share how data from a longitudinal, multi-year survey helped inform the creation of GenAI resources for students, faculty, and staff across the San Diego State University ecosystem. Key areas of insight include addressing the AI digital divide, as well as the stigma surrounding GenAI use. Solutions presented will address training, support, and other GenAI resources to enhance students’ career readiness and workforce preparedness, thereby benefiting the overall economic health of California and beyond.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

1. Utilize the SDSU AI Survey Data Dashboard to view insights and themes pertaining to the use of GenAI in the academic setting.
2. Leverage resources and effective practices shared through the Equitable AI Alliance.
3. Replicate training, support, and other GenAI resources to enhance students’ career readiness and workforce preparedness.

California Education Learning Lab’s Grand Challenge: Overcoming the Calculus Barrier to STEM Success will connect four major funded projects to improve learning outcomes and close racial and gender equity gaps in STEM degree attainment in the three segments of California Higher Education.

The C3 Grand Challenge Cohort Facilitator Team has been working closely with will help the Grand Challenge awarded teams for the past three years. This work includes sharing their project ideas, approaches, findings, data, and outcomes over the duration of the award three-year period. Additionally, the Cohort Facilitator Team, has focused their work this year on and developing work to facilitate webinars on use of a Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) rubric for development of online materials, model curriculum frameworks, searchable database of course assets, Open Educational Resource (OER) development, and Creative Commons licensing for publicly funded projects.

The Cohort Facilitator Team leverages opportunities to Convene, Connect, and Collaborate among the awardees groups..
California Education Learning Lab’s Grand Challenge The educational assets will be located in: LibreTexts and MERLOT providing open access to educators and learners.
Year three efforts of the Cohort Facilitator Team have focused on the following actions to finalize the 3-year project with the 4 awardee teams.

• Organizing and meta-tagging learning objects for searchability
• Support for meeting OER requirements of the grant
• Organizing curriculum into a model curriculum framework
• Optimizing curricular assets for storing educational assets: LibreTexts, and MERLOT.
• Creative Commons licensing in alignment with CELL Grand Challenge specifications
• Application of DEI principles to course design and faculty development
• Developing a searchable database for CELL Grand Challenge curricular assets
•  Inspire Conference: Luskin Center, October 2024

At the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Application of DEI principles to course design and faculty development
2. Developing a searchable database for CELL Grand Challenge curricular assets
3.  Organizing and meta-tagging learning objects for searchability

The open educational resource (OER) landscape is remarkably diverse, yet extended reality (XR)—which encompasses augmented, mixed, and virtual reality modalities—has remained largely absent. Recent technological advancements, reduced hardware costs, and a growing body of content have accelerated XR adoption. In this session, we unveil the Open Educational Extended Reality (OEXR) Library that was incubated within the California State University system as a resource for the collective higher education community to democratize this transformative technology and empower equitable access for all learners. Survey responses (n = 169) from 100 institutions spanning six continents were used to ensure functionality was designed to meet diverse user needs, from contributors to consumers. Respondents primarily consisted of staff, faculty, and administrators, with additional input from librarians, students, and industry partners. User priorities included robust search and discovery capabilities, interactive downloadable 3D assets for reuse, and resources related to learning objectives and assessment suggestions. Clear expectations for contributors and guidelines for creating and submitting XR content were also prioritized, as well as discovery mechanisms to enable the ability to categorize and tag content based on multiple criteria. Join us as we discuss the creation of the OEXR library and introduce it to the DET/CHE community as a resource for new possibilities across teaching, learning, and collaboration in higher education.

After participating in this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explore OEXR Library survey data dashboard to see how respondents plan to leverage XR assets and pedagogical materials.
2. Leverage the OEXR Library for educational use and gain familiarity with features that were prioritized from data collected from the EDUCAUSE community.
3. Contribute and collaborate with colleagues globally via the OEXR Library.